Yarn and method of producing the same



Dec. 15, 1936.

E. J. LOWNES. JR, ET AL NUBBY PART OF YARN DEGUMMING DRYING Filed June17, 1935 RABBIT HAIR 45: Wool.

55x RABBIT HAIR OPENER 6 2 Sheets-Sheet '1 PAYO N TO PS cmome i0 0 l v o(F 0 o 4' v v DRESSING P 9 9 (I) |5T DRAFT ROT.DRAW|NG- 74 GILLING 6 vNOT u sso ORTHISYARN l 33(2 GRAINS 330 GRAINE fi/z o 6Z2YD5- I 2ND DRAFTNOT USED FORTHISYARN FlLLING l-g A c GILLING DRESSING Z 9 l .--*a$u%*2@"FORTHFSYARN o o o o I NOILS l ZZ l -57 v ROT. DRAWING DYE Z5 1 Z 17 I FCARDING |d H??? ROTQDRAWING RoLoRAwme L66 i [P.OLDRAWING F27 (V O O oROT.DRAWING 4 l Sula/ER OFIBOGRAINS READY FOR P oven PER 572 YDS. ROV'NGY I, I AND smrmme INVENTORS J Ed a?" Jl ownes '7 v Jlfi es 0 Gibson B)(944% w 1 ATTORNEYS Dec. 15, 1936. E. J. LOWNES. JR., E 2,4,73

YARN AND METHOD OF PRODUCING THE SAME Filed June 17, 1935 2 Sheets-Sheet2 HHHHHHHHHH HIflfllfll'flllllllIHIHIIIIUIIHHHIlllIHHIIHIIHIIIIIIHIHIIWITNESSES \l44 45 INVENTORS Patented Dec. 15, 1936 UNITED STATES PATENT.or ice "$2,064,761" YARN AND =METHOD OF PRODUCING 'rnEsAMEy H Edgar J.Lownes, Inland Miles 0. Gibson, Prov idence, R. 1., assignors toAmerican Silk Spinning 00., Providence, Rhode Island R. L, a corporationof Application .lune 17, 1935 Serial No. 21,094

6 Claims.

An additional objectis to provide an improved 4 methodof using the nubbypart of silk yam with' rayon fibres and a mixture oflwool, and rabbit'shair to form a roving ready for spinning: and with substantiallyspecific proportions of the various materials in the complete roving. Inthe accompanying drawings-'- a Figure 1 is a diagram showing the varioussteps of the process whereby a finished, roving is produced ready for aspinning machine; I

Fig. 2 is a view principally formed as a' diagram showing a machineknown as'a rotary drawing machine with certain parts changed to producesteps'in the method;

.Fig. 3 is a view similar. to Fig. 2 but showing a standard arrangementof the drawing machine illustratedv in Fig. 2; f

, "Fig. 4 is a diagram with certain parts in section showing a gillingmachine of, an old and wellknowntype;

Fig. 5 shows a falleror comb forming part of the gilling machine shown.in Fig.'4,.the same presenting an improved construction of fallerespecially adapted for producing yarn according mine present method; V lFig. 6 is an elevation of a short section ofyarn constructed accordingto thepresent invention, the same being on an enlarged scale; s Fig. 7is an elevation of a short section olthe yarn shown in Fig. .6 greatlyenlarged.

The accompanying drawings disclose diagrams indicating certain machineryarranged to produce the desired steps in the method oiiorming an ornamental yarn having certain proportionsofr cere v tain materials. Itwill be evident, however, that the proportions may be variedwithoutchan'ging the method, but for the purpose of description specificproportions will be set forth where itis necessary to bring out certainsteps in the process. y p

Referring particularly to Fig.1 it will be seen that there are fourprincipal groups of machines is to provide an im- I used in carrying outthe present method, the first group being indicated by the letter A,while the other groups'are indicated respectivelyby the letters 13,0 andD.

In forming the ornamental yarn, as shown in.

Figs. 6 and 7, a certain quantity or waste silk, a part of which formswhat-is known as the nubby part of the yarn, is taken and placed in adenim ming machine, indicated by the numeral 5. At the same or someother time a certain proportion of wool and rabbits'hair is dumped intoa device, the same being known as an opener, indicated at 8. In thespecific example given in the drawings there is forty-five per cent wool(sheep) ,and fifty-five per cent rabbit's hair.

At the same time these operations are taking place, or at some othertime,'a supply of rayon tops is dumped into a dyeing apparatus I. The

rayon tops consistoi a suppl'y'oi rayon filaments or various lengthsusually arranged in ,a pile and giving the appearance of waste. Thesetops being of various lengths and placed in a pile become more or lessmatted and in order to use the same they must be dyed andthenstraightened out and arranged ina comparativelysmall band or sliver. Todo this a desired supply of rayon tops is dumped into the'dyeing'machine I as above mentioned and after they have been properly dyed andlater dried, the dyed'rayon tops are fed into a gillingmachine ,8, whichstraightens out the fibers and arranges the supply in a long sliverwhichis'discharged from the machine. In the illustration shown, a,sliver weighs 330 grains. per five and one half yards. As far as thepresent invention is concerned, the dyeingiapparatus is of any desiredkind and also as far as the present invention isconcerned the gillin'gmachine 8 is an ordinary gilling machine I now in common use infactorieswhich spin silk, rayon and the like. This machine takes themass 01' rayon tops ted thereinandstraightens the filaments out to acertain extent and'then ,ieeds the tops out in a continuousband commonlyknown asa sliver. This band may varyiin thickp ness and width, andis'ied into a receptacle known as a can. Whenone can is filled thesliver is broken off and as -thels1iver continuesto feed from thegilling machine it is discharged into a second can. When the second canis filled, the same operationtakes place and the silver is fed into athird can. This operation co'ntinuesas long as the machine is in use.The slivers in all these cans will be of. substantially the same weightper yard.

While the above-mentioned action is-taklng place, the mass of mattedwool and rabbit's hair dumped into the machine or opener t is beingoperated on in the usual manner. The machine 0 is the ordinary machineknown as an opener in the industry and functions'ln the usual way of anopener. as above set forth. Generally speaking,

this opener pulls the matted mass of rabbits hair and wool and mixes thesame somewhat. During the pulling operation it loosens up all the lumpsor thickened matted parts so that when the mixture is discharged fromthe opener 6 it is a loose mass of wool and rabbits hair more or lessmixed.

To secure a-hetter mixture and also to be sure that there are noundesirable lumps in the mass, the material from the opener 6'isdischarged into a second opener 9 where the same operation takes place.

From the second opener the material is fed into a carding machine [0.This is an ordinary carding machine used in carding cotton, wool and thelike, and the detail structure forms no part of the present invention asany desired type or carding machine may be used. When the cardingmachine in is in use it discharges a'sliver of a certain weight per yardaccording to the way the parts are set. This sliver is fed into cans inthe same way as the. sliver from the giliing ma usual kindfunctloning'inthe usual way to com bine. straighten, and blend the four slivers fedtherein so that only one sliver is fed therefrom which is approximatelythe same weight as any one of the slivers fed therein. This actioncauses the wool and rabbit's hair to become more or less entwined; alsoit pulls out the material .so that,

substantially the same proportion of wool and rabbit's hair-is foundwithin the discharged silver as is indicated above in connection withthe opener 6. I

In. order to secure better and more uniform silver and one of thedesired weight, a second rotary drawing machine H is used and fourcanfuls o! slivers from the drawing machine II are arranged near thedrawing machine "so that the slivers therefrom may be fed therein. 'Fromthe drawing machine l4 the finished sliver is discharged. This silver,as indicated in the drawings, has a weight of 330 grains per five andonehali yards and is complete as far as group B is concerned. While theoperations above described have been taking place, or at some othertime, the hubby part of the silk yarn as a waste is dumped into thedegumming machine 5. This waste may be ravelings or left-over strapsfrom silk mills, or may be cocoons which have been broken up andshredded more or less, or a mixture of cocoons and waste from'silkmills. The waste is more or less matted and also contains gum, grease,and the like. When dumped into the degummlng machine it is cleaned ofall the objectionable matter. The degumming machine 5 may be any of theusual degumming machines on the market and is merely a vat filled withhot or boiling water containing soap or other ingredients. This treat-9. The opener l5 pulls the matted i her to the dressing machine ll.

ment is carried out until the gum on the natural silk and the grease onthe silk Irom the mills are removed. This cleaned and degummed silk isstill in a more or less matted or massed condition and is then dried.The drying operation may be carried out in any way. Usually a mass ofthe silk is placed in a rotary dryer, is sometimes known as a. retainer.lit is than moved tea but room. where the drying opera= tlon iscompleted.

;After the material is dried is fed in opener i5 which is similar to andloosens the same up to such thereare no large lumps or rnattec. the massis loose and ready for the filling From the opener ill the mass of isfed into the filler which is an old known construction. The fillerbriefly vice for placing a supply oi filaments into is known as sticks,which consists of a pair c clamping bars adapted to clamp a bunch of merial. These filled sticm are then mounted in a dressing machine H, whichdressing machine is of the usual and well-known kind now in common use.This dressing machine removes the longer fibers which are known as thefirst draft. These longer, or rather longest, fibers are not usedfor theyarn disclosed in Fig. 6.

All the yarn remaining from the dressing machine not in the first draftis fed into a. filling machine is, where it is placed on sticks as abovedescribed, and these sticks are placed in a second dressing machine H,which acts in a similar man- The longest fibers from the dressingmachine 69 are removed to a desired point and are not used for the yarndisclosed in Fig. 6.

All the yarn not in the second draft is fed into a third fillingmachine, which acts in a similar manner to the filling machines 56 andi8, and the filled sticks from the machine 2D are placed in a thirddressing machine 2!, which acts in a similar manner to the first twodressing machines and discharges the third draft which is the thirdlongest fibers.

The remaining fibers from the third draft are removed and form a massknown as "noils, indicated in Fig. 1 by the numeral 22. These noils aremerely dumped into a pile and when desired to complete the process thesenoils are run through a dyeing machine 23 of any desired kind. The noils22 are the shortest fibers and form little knobs or twisted bunches. Thenoils are more or less kinked or curly and when dyed this characteristicis increased so that they retain rather tenaciously their bunchedcondition. After the noils have been dyed they are fed into a cardingmachine 24 which is of the usual kind and similar to the carding machinei 0. It will be understood that they are red in a mass into the cardingmachine but leave in a band or sliver 25. This band or sliver 25 iscomparatively heavy per yard and is fed. into a rotary drawing machine26 which is similar'to the drawing machines I l and H. The sliver fromthe drawing machine 26 is fed into a second rotary drawing machine 21which further straightens thefibers and then discharges them as asilver, saidsliv'er being fed into a third drawing machine 28. All thedrawing machines act in a similar manner for drawing and reducing thediameter of the sliver, while, at the same time, they straighten more orless the fibers of the noils which overlap each other and are more orless entwined. The drawing maslivers until the desired ard machine and amachine that will I 2,064,761 28 are set as shown in Fig. 2.

chines 26 and The band or sliver passing from the last drawing machine,namely, drawing machine 20, is the finished sliver as far as this partofthe process is-con'cerned, and in the above example when dyed has aweight of grains per five and onehalf yards. It will'be evident that thedyeing machine 23 could be eliminated and the'remaining steps of theprocess carried. out. When this occurs the finished sliver from thedrawing ma- 29. Slivers from all six of these cans are fed into glllingmachine 2t, which functions in the usual manner and combines and blendsall of these sliver to from gilling machine 2% is of approximately thesame] size asany one of the fibers fed therein. This is true exceptthatthe silk noil cannot 'berun' on this standard machine and thedesired results secured. Therefore, it is necessary to changea gill boxfrom the standard type'to a type} of machine thatwill runboth the rayonand rabbit hair along with the silk noil. This requires a machine withthe combined features of the standrun the silk noil without interinixingthe clusters of colored fibre. This is'accomplished by removing thestandard iallers and replacing these fallers with special fallers itshown in Figure 5.-

The rayon and rabbit hair sliver is run through that part of the fallerthat contains'the standard pinning t3, and the silk noil'is run throughthat portion of the ialler containing the open or special pinning itsThus, on the same machine and in the same operation, the twocombinations of fibre are blended into one sliver without" anyalteration in the required characteristic of the different fibre. Fivecans of slivers "from "the gilling machine as rotary drawing machine 3iand thes'livers fed therefrom. This drawing machine combines and drawsout the'slivers until thedischarged-sliver t2 is'oi approximately thesamesizeas any one of the slivers fed into the machine. Five cans of 35are then fed slivers from the drawing machine into a second rotary 3drawing machine 33. Five censor slivers from drawing machine 33 are thenfed into a rotary drawing machine and finishing head to. All the drawingmachines 3!, 33 and 3d are oi the usual type now in common use andfunction in the usual way. From the rotary drawing and finishing head itthe finished sliver is discharged ready for roving. This roving sliver35 is ready for the spinning machine. Usually the roving sliver 35 iswound on a spool of a wellknown kind and at the proper time is placed ona desired support in a spinning machine and is spun in the usual way.After having been spun the complete yarn will appear as shown in Fig. 6.

The finished yarn is made up of the various ingredients above mentioned,namely, the nubby part of silk, rabbit's hair, wool, and rayon tops. Theproportions in the finished yarn are substantially the same as disclosedinv Fig. 1, so that there will be approximately four parts of rayon theyarn maybe woven any section of the yarnmay Y from the next adjacentsection though in agenparting from the spirit are arranged adjacent thetops to one part of silk noils, as well as four parts of rayon tops toone part of combined wool and rabbit's hair. The rabbitshalr must beclosely associated with ma a; so as to hold the same in 1 the yarn. Therabbits "hair-is more or vless straight while the woolis curly and wrapsitseli more or less'around the rabbits hair so as to bind itself intothe finished yarn though part of the hair will project therefrom.However, the yarn and combined wool and rabbitjs hair will extend thefull length of the yarn as well as' 'the rayon tops "so that whendifferent colors are used a very pleasing ornamental yarn will beproduced having certain proportions of silk yarn, a certain proportionof combined wool and rabbits hair, anda certain proportion of rayontops. Wherev the noils are dyed red, there will'be a reddish tintthroughout the entire yarn,-ancl in addition by reason of the make-up ofthe noils there will be lumps or enlargements it which are formed bycertain of the noils while the, rabbit's hair will have numeroushalrsprotruding to give a fuzzy appearance to the'yarn and also to the fabricproduced by theyarn. 'It will be understood that or knit as'preferred.While the various dmwin'g machines it to 3d blend and combine thematerial passing therethrough, nevertheless there will be in thefinished in Fig. 6, separate fibers twisted yarn as shown together toform the complete yarn. Sometimes the fiber from the silk yarndominateswhile at other timesthe' combined wool and rabbit's hair dominates. Inthis way the exact makeup of be slightly different noils beingpreferablyof some rather bright color while the rabbits hair is usually whitethough it could be dyed some desired color without degeneral layout ofFigure 1 it will be noted that "the rotary drawing machine shown inFigure 2 is used as 26 and 28 while the rotary drawing ofithe invention.In the machines ii, M, 21,3i, dt'anddtare of the type shown in Figure 3.

In regard to the machine 36', it is desired to point out that in Fig. 3is disclosed a machine of this type which is the regular machine exceptthat it is provided with an extra top herisson it. The various herissonsas shown inFig. 3 act to pull, straighten, and blend more or less the,various materials into the desired form of roving sliver which isalmost a yarn except that it has not been twisted. This finished sliveror roving sliver is fed outthrough the member 39 and the guiding andpressing wheels into a can il. From can ti the roving sliver may bewound on a spool in any desired manner ready for the spinning machine.When the roving sliver is placed in a spinning machine and is spun inthe usual manner the yarn is complete as shown in Fig. 6.

It will be understood that any dyeing is done before the materials aremixed because of the second gilling machine 4 wool and rabbit's hairproduce a desired color scheme in the finished yarn as some of thelargernoils in the finished yarn present protuberances which show up in apleasing manner especially with the natural color of the rabbits hair asa form of background.

We claim:

1. The method of producing an ornamental yarn consisting in treatingwaste silk fiber by a well-known method until the noils are removedtherefrom, treating the noils until a sliver of a given weight per yardis secured, securing a supply of wool and rabbits hair, passing the samethrough an opener, then passing the mixed wool and rabbits hair througha carding machine and providing a plurality of slivers from the cardingmachine through a plurality of drawing machines to provide a sliver of agiven weight per yard, then subjecting a supply of rayon tops to dye,then, subjecting the dyed rayon tops to a gilling machine to produce asliver of a given weight, then feeding a plurality of slivers from thegilling machine into a second gilling machine at the same time a silksliver and a combined wool and hair fiber sliver are fed therein, thensubjecting the material after it leaves the to a number of rotary aroving sliver ready for produced, and finally in a well-known mandrawingmachines until the spinning machine is spinning the roving sliver net.

2. The method of forming an ornamental yarn of silk, wool, rabbits hair,and rayon tops, consisting in treating the rayon tops until a sliver ofa given weight is produced, mixing and treating wool and rabbits hairuntil a sliver of the same weight as the rayon-top silver is produced,treating silk waste fiber until a sliver of noils is produced 01'approximately half the weight of the rayon-top sliver, feeding one silksliver, one combined rabbits hair and wool sliver, and a plurality ofslivers of rayon tops into a gilling machine, taking a plurality ofslivers from the gilling machine and passing the same through a drawingmachine, then taking the re sultant slivers and running a pluralitythereof in succession through a plurality of drawing machines, the lastdrawing machine being a finishing head, and finally running a sliverfrom the finishing head through a spinning machine to produce thefinished yarn.

3. The method of forming a yarn oi silk, wool,

rabbits hair and rayon with at least one of said ingredients being of adiiferent color from the remaining ingredients, consisting in forming asliver of a given weight of rayon, forming a sliver of combinedwooi andrabbit's hair of substantially the same weight per yard as the sliver ofrayon, forming a sliver of silk of less weight per yard than the rayonsliver, forming a mixed sliver of the rayon, silk and wool and rabbitshair slivers, subjecting the mixed slivers to a drawing action until themixed slivers form a single sliver of the desired weight per yard withat least one of-the individual slivers still recognizable by reason ofits color, and finally subjecting the final silver to a spinningmachine.

4. The method of forming a yarn of silk, wool, rabbits hair and rayon,consisting in forming a sliver of rayon, forming a sliver of wool andrabbits hair of substantially the same weight as the sliver of rayon,forming silk noils from a supply of silk fiber, forming a sliver of silknoils 01 approximately one-half the weight per yard as the rayon sliver,forming a mixed sliver of the rayon, silk and wool and rabbits hairslivers, and finally subjecting the mixed sliver to the action of adrawing machine 'until the mixed sliver is of a desired weight per yard.

5. The method of forming a yarn of not less than four ingredients withat least one of the ingredients being of a diflerent color from theremaining ingredients including silk noils consisting in forming asliver of one of said ingredients of a given weight per yard, forming asecond sliver of a mixture of two of said ingredients, said secondsliver being of approximately the same weight per yard as thefirst'mentioned sliver, forming a sliver of said silk noils ofappreciably less weight per yard than the first mentioned sliver,blending said slivers by subjecting all of the slivers simultaneously toa drawing action, said blending action being carried out until all ofthe slivers are mechanically intermingled but with one sliver stillindividually recognizable by reason of its color.

6. The method of forming a roving strand from silk, wool, rabbits hair,and a fourth ingredient consisting in forming silk noils from a supplyof silk fibers, forming a silver from said noils, mixing a supply ofsheep's wool and rabbits hair, forming a silver from the mixed sheep'swool and rabbit's hair, forming a sliver of said fourth ingredient, thensubjecting all of said slivers at the same time to the action of adrawing machine for forming a finished roving strand ready for spinning.

EDGAR J. LOWNES, JR. MILES O. GIBSON.

